"And it came to pass on the eighth day." (Lev. 9:1) Rabbi Yitzhak opened [his discourse] by saying: "When the morning stars sing together and all the sons of Elokim will shout for joy." (Job 38:7) Worthy are Israel, because G‑d has given them the Holy Torah [which is from supernal chochmah and is] the joy of all, the joy of the Holy One, blessed be He, and [the Holy Torah is also] the place where He strolls, as is written: "And I was daily his delight." (Prov. 8:30) The whole Torah is one Divine Name of the Holy One, blessed be He. The world was created through the medium of the Torah, as it is written: "Then I was by Him as a nursling (in Hebrew, 'amun')." Do not pronounce it as 'amun' but as "uman," literally a craftsman [that G‑d looked into the Torah and crafted the world thereby].

And man was created through the Torah, as it is written: "And Elokim said [to whom?] : 'Let us make man.'" (Gen. 1:26) The Holy One, blessed be He, said to the Torah: 'I wish to create man'. She replied: 'This man is destined to sin and provoke You. Unless You are long-suffering with him, how then shall he endure? And He replied to her: you and I shall maintain him in the world, for I am not called 'long-suffering' for no reason. [The Torah which is chochmah teaches us the good path not to sin, and if we sin, then bina, the source of teshuvah, stands to receive us and return us to the good path; so chochmah and bina maintain man in the world.]

Rabbi Hiya [differs with R. Yitzhak and reasons that Zeir Anpin and Nukva maintain man, thus he] said that the Written Torah [Zeir Anpin] and the Oral Torah [Nukva/malchut] establish man in the world, as it is written: "Let us [plural] make man in our image, after our likeness." Rabbi Yosi [differs with Rabbi Hiya and] said [we know] that from [a different] verse: "that which has been already done by them (plural, meaning the two sefirot together)." (Eccl. 2:12) "By them," truly. It is the image and the likeness: an "image" in masculine form [connoting the masculine, Zeir Anpin], and "likeness" in feminine form [connoting the female, Nukva/malchut]. That is the reason why the Torah begins with the letter beit (= two). This has already been explained.

Rabbi Yitzhak said: Why is the letter beit open [in the front] and closed [behind]? When a man comes to attach himself to the Torah, it is open to receive him and join with him, but when he closes his eyes to it and walks in the other way, it is closed from the other side, as it is written: "If you forsake Me one day, I will forsake you [for]two [days]". There will be no opening until he returns to connect himself to it face-to-face and never abandons it again. Therefore, the Torah first comes to men, calling to them: "To you, O men I call" (Prov. 8:4) and also: "She utters her voice in the squares, she cries in the chief place of concourse, at the entrance of the gates, in the city she utters her words." (Prov.1:21)

Rabbi Yehuda said: The letter beit is [in the form of] two roofs and one [line in the form of the letter vav] joining them. What does it signify? One [roof, i.e. a horizontal line] is for heaven [as tiferet] and the other for earth [as malchut]. The Holy One, blessed be He [Zeir Anpin/yesod] unites and receives them.

Rabbi Elazar said that these lines [hint to] three supernal holy lights [i.e. the three modes of chesed, gevura and tiferet] connected as one, of which the whole Torah is comprised. (The source of the positive commandments is chesed, the source of the negative commandments is gevura, and the source of the Torah's essence is tiferet.) They open the gates to everyone to faith, and they [chesed, gevura and tiferet] are like a house to all. Therefore, they are called 'a house ', for they are a house (in Hebrew, 'bayit', alluding to and in the shape of the letter beit). The Torah commences, therefore, with that letter, for it is a house and a remedy for the whole world.

Therefore he who is occupied in the Torah is as if he is occupied in the Divine Name [Havayah]. We have learned that the whole Torah is one supernal Divine Name and because of that, it begins with the beit [representing bina] for it comprises the Divine Name, the three bonds of faith [represented by this letter's three lines].

Come and see: all those who study the Torah are cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He, and are adorned with the crowns of the Torah and are beloved Above and below. The Holy One, blessed be He, stretches out to them His right hand. All the more so those who also study the Torah at night, as we have learned that they are associated with the Shechinah and are joined with Her. When morning comes, the Holy One, blessed be He, winds a thread of grace around them to make them well known among the upper and the lower beings.

At the time that the Congregation of Israel [the Shechinah] and those who study the Torah come to appear before the King, all the morning stars break forth into song together, as it is written: "When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of Elokim shouted for joy." (Job 38:7) What does "shouted/yari'u" mean? The meaning is as is written: "The earth is utterly broken down (in Hebrew, 'ro'a')." (Isaiah 24:19) Those judgments are broken. All of them are broken before morning, when morning [related to chesed] arouses in the world, as it is written, "And Abraham [the man of chesed] rose up early in the morning." (Gen. 22:3) Therefore, "all the sons of Elokim shouted" [as the power of judgment was broken and nullified].

BeRahamim LeHayyim: Two's are problematic and get into trouble: Good/Evil, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Sarah and Hagar, Ishmael and Isaac, Jacob and Esau, etc. (See Sefer Limot Yameynu: Shenayim Mi Yodea?) In fact the Talmud instructs not to do things in pairs, not drink two beverages, etc. (Pesachim 109b)
Here we learn about the letter beit, that spiritually, we do not have such problems with two — Oral and Written Torah, Congregation of Israel and the King, Zeir Anpin and Nukva, Abba and Imma. Maybe the secret is that the letter beit [ב] has two "roofs" -– i.e. horizontal lines — but also a connecting line. The connector must always be present, otherwise there is division and difference. Find the connector, and you will find peace.

Bracketed annotations from Metok Midevash and Sulam commentaries
Copyright 2003 by KabbalaOnline.org, a project of Ascent of Safed (//ascentofsafed.com). All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work or portions thereof, in any form, unless with permission, in writing, from Kabbala Online.